Dedication and expertise
Starting his journey as an electrician at UGL five years ago, Danial Smith successfully completed his training to become a certified signal maintenance technician. Today, he has further elevated his career, taking on the responsibility of a Signalling Team Leader.
What has been your journey at UGL?
“I started as a signal electrician, completing a portion of the certificate 3 in railway signalling off my own back. After I joined UGL, my manager offered me the support I needed to complete the certificate.
“I was promoted to a leading hand role which I was proud to take on and was further supported to complete my certificate 4. In early 2021 I had all my workplace assessments, there was about 20 of these to go through, and I completed my certificate 4 becoming a fully qualified signal maintenance technician. Soon after, I was approached about stepping up to a team leader. I have been a team leader close to 2 years now.”
What is involved in your role as a team leader?
“We can act in the absence of a supervisor, so that might be directing work groups, liaising with the client, procuring consumables and stock equipment, or ensuring everything is in place that we might need as a sub-contractor on another job to complete the work professionally and safely. I am there to enforce project standards with our team as I help to facilitate problem solving and project resourcing.”
Tell me about me about a project you have worked on that had a great outcome
“I spent a fair bit of time on the metro tunnel and some of the time we had areas we needed clarification on. I would engage the project manager, engineers, and designers to ensure we always liaised closely so we could all collaboratively see a problem rather than looking at photos and drawings. This helps all parties involved to get a good understanding, and why certain things are completed a particular way, recognising the workability and the practicalities of what we are all trying to achieve.”
Where is home?
“I am working out of our Dandenong South office. I live over in the western suburbs where I have family, I grew up in Gippsland and have family still living in Gippsland. If there comes a time that I am out on site, I spend a fair bit of time with family. I recognised early on that staying well mentally when doing FIFO, you must make sure you are looking after yourself and making friends with people that you had that engagement outside of work.”
What is a unique thing about you?
“I have an extremely good memory; I can remember the most ridiculous things. There might be some tiny little aspect of a job that happened two years ago, someone can come to me and say, “Can you remember this happening?” They come to me knowing I will probably have the answer and be able to recall exactly what process we went through and the reason for something particular happening.”
